As for the idea that the Miata is a "Chick Car", that's pretty much undeserved. I don't think I've sen more than a dozen women driving them since they came out. The typical Miata driver seems to be a middle-aged guy, probably reliving their youthful acquaintance with MGs and Triumphs. I hardly ever see young guys driving them, unless they're beat-up rust traps. It seems like todays youth focuses more on decibels coming out of their speakers than on HP coming out of the tailpipes.

A successor to the current Mx-5 is being co-developed with one other than Alfa-Romeo. I've come close to buying a Miata but a combination of Italian style and Japanese mechanics could seal the deal.

Early on, there was indeed a rush of female buyers, and that's where the image came from. It was like all the old folks who bought PT Cruisers and Scion xBs---not the demographic Chrysler or Toyota was expecting.

The Miata could use a bit more "authority" out the tailpipe and some tweeks to the Disney image.

That's it. I remember the early Miata days, and a lot of them seemed to be spotted in automatic form with a woman behind the wheel. That with the cute face (which would become much worse in the new century) didn't work to give it a masculine image.

Funny thing, I know a woman who had a manual Miata, but she's probably in the "what did I do" category. She didn't lower the top nearly often enough, commuted in it a lot, eventually it got hit and totaled. It was replaced with a CVT Versa - so fun wasn't her concern.

I'm looking forward to ordering a manual-shift 2015 GMC colorado or chevy canyon in a few months... Extended cab... There won't be a regular-cab. Maybe I'll wait until 2016, but probably not, because in 8 months from now there will be a new driver in the house to drive my M6 chevy cruze.

(btw, All new regular-cab pickups will be disappearing soon due to change in how "CAFE" is measured, if they haven't already.)

Cruze M6 lifetime mpg has dropped below 33, over 58k miles so far, since I've been doing fewer long-highway cruises, and usually prefer the 22 mpg M6 GTO for the long rides.

It was probably me that said it, with 20 % of the passenger vehicle fleet being M/T. But the lower % is more OVERALL not just 1/3 of Corvettes for one or two models years being M/T.

So for example the 2001 Corvette Z06 was 100 % 6 speed M/T's. I don't recalled the exact total Corvette sales that year but it was app 33/34k. So with 5995 Z06 sales that put Corvette MT sales @ a minimum of 18%. When you add app 20% of the other line being M/T (+5.6k) That year was more like 34% M/T's. So if Chevrolet offered a A/T option in the Z06, most certainly the % would have been FAR lower than 34%.

To state the obvious, NOT offering an M/T in the (bread & butter) Toyota Camry lines and other model lines ( too numerous to mention {continually diminishing MT offerings} ) has not hurt Toyota in any to all the metrics it choses to measure in the process of serving the markets, it choses to serve. If anything, they HIT habitually the #'s 1,2,3 place in world wide auto oem rankings.(other players are GM,VW)

On a practical level, I think they (the food chain) are more persuaded by the M/T equipped vehicles (any to all model lines) that either are hard to sell, have to discount abnormally or a combination of both or remain on the dealer's lots an "abnormally" long time. Do not discount the A/T sells for @ least 1k over the "standard" M/T. In terms of what folks ACTUALLY buy the term "standard" is actually misused to reversed.

The real improvement is even as it sits on one dealers' lot a LONG time, it is listed in the over all US logistics system. So in effect if there is a Toyota M/T buyer/driver in down town Washington D.C and the dream machine is in rural Georgia, there is an almost instant hook up.

CAFE probably has more to do with the switch away from manuals in the US than anything. There's nothing wrong with a manual that some savvy advertising couldn't "fix". New automatics and CVTs just get better mpg, at least on the EPA tests.

@Stever@Edmunds said:
CAFE probably has more to do with the switch away from manuals in the US than anything. There's nothing wrong with a manual that some savvy advertising couldn't "fix". New automatics and CVTs just get better mpg, at least on the EPA tests.

Just not in real life. CR has been doing head to head tests of MT and AT of the same model for years and the MT always wins. And yes that includes automated manuals like the VW TDI. EPA favors automatics because they can be tuned to match the EPA test.

Kind of like having a crash that's not "in the book". You wind up with unintended consequences when you design for the test. So now we're stuck with automatics and the real world CAFE fleet numbers are a smidge lower than they could be.

That supposition overlooks the large numbers of "sporty" MT drivers who love to drag race from one red light to the next.

@dudleyr said:
Just not in real life. CR has been doing head to head tests of MT and AT of the same model for years and the MT always wins. And yes that includes automated manuals like the VW TDI. EPA favors automatics because they can be tuned to match the EPA test.

You might agree with this (or not). The fly in the ointment , or what I refer to as the 800# gorilla in the room is the correct combination (12 Passat 2.0 L 4 cylinder TDI with (only a LOW tech) 6 speed manual transmission) TRUMPS LOADs of complicated high tech. This is assembled in the USA !! (Chattanooga, TN) The H EPA rating is @ 43 mpg, which is "segment leading".

The Taylor's set a one tank record of 84 mpg +PLUS . Wayne Gerdes (who actually is an Edmunds.com posting alumnus) set an app 8,200 miles trip @ 77+plus mpg trip record

Notice it beat HIS own hybrid record. Nobody else threw up a hybrid against either of them that beat EITHER record, including himself.

The M/T nexus here:

IF a slush box 4/5/6/7/8/9 speed, 6/7/8 speed DSG, CVT, et al., could have beaten the (relatively) low tech 6 speed M/T, they most certainly would have !!!!! So the interesting thing given the 7 speed Tremec in the 14 Corvette Stingray (rumored to post 30 mpg) all VW would have to do is to add another GEAR !! ???

@nippononly said:
Read an article this week that said 1/3 of all Corvettes are bought with a manual...I thought someone in here said it was a much lower number.

I don't get sports car buyers who buy automatics...it removes so much of the involvement of the drive...

I'll give you my theory---it's not much fun rowing a gearshift in big, heavy, wide supercars. With that size and enormous power a gearshift is just one more distraction you don't need if you are the type of driver who likes to go 9/10th sometime.

also the Corvette demographic is rather aged, and you know, creaky knees and elbows and all that.

If I ever bought a new or near new Vette or Ferrari, I'd certainly opt for the DSG type of transmission because I'd intend to drive the crap out of it. I mean, it's ridiculous (to me) to have a car that goes 65 mph in first gear. To what purpose?

I have never had any issues taking a Corvette on two lane winding rolling hills kind of roads; Highway One as the iconic example (about as west as one can get within eye shot of falling in the western drink, aka Pacific Ocean. However those iconic roads were not ever designed to carry huge loads of traffic, nor for "higher speed" conveyance. Now if one likes the engine screaming like a banshee, and working the clutch and shifting gears like a mad person, wind in the hair, etc. then really the "Japanese" Triumph/Bug Eye Sprite (you know the drill) Miata, Mini might be in the element, until one comes up on a SLOW moving RV dragging a small car behind it. They are usually not local types and understand that CA law about holding up 5 cars...... Now can you really blame them? They just don't want the breakfast dishes to go flying around in the house.

Well sure in a Bug Eye the acceleration is about as fast as the earth's crust cooling, but a supercharged Mini can move out right quick for passing and there's still room at the guard rail. In a Corvette on the Pacific Hwy you only need one gear, like 3rd, for the entire day's journey.

@MrShift@Edmunds said:
Well sure in a Bug Eye the acceleration is about as fast as the earth's crust cooling, but a supercharged Mini can move out right quick for passing and there's still room at the guard rail. In a Corvette on the Pacific Hwy you only need one gear, like 3rd, for the entire day's journey.

10 to 12 seconds pass ( in the WRONG lane) can feel like forever, or can be the gateway TO forever !

Be careful out there ! (as they used to say in an OLD cop show !)

One gear pass? Works for me !! (in a pinch or IF I mess up) Normally it is a signal, lamps on, double declutch, drop into the appropriate gear, signal, pull out to pass, pass, (sometimes shift) put back in, up shift. It almost takes longer to put this to print. While I love the sounds, I can see why some folks do not like them. Anymore, I am into "let sleeping dogs lie."

I enjoy the manual transmission in my Fiat 500, but agree with Shifty regarding the newer Corvettes and similar cars. Any late model, high powered car I would own would be automatic. That wouldn't have been the case with the performance cars of the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, when automatics had fewer gears and more slippage. The exception, back in the day, was the Hydra-Matic, before it was coupled with a torque converter. It featured 4 speeds, at a time when most manuals had 3, and little slippage.

They are probably some of the good reasons why you don't have one (Corvette or a Corvette M/T) or are in the dwindling demographic GM aims @ or sells to. Additionally, we are not going back to those days: whether M/T's die a death, expand, contract or stay in arrested population decay.

I do not keep up with this, but Chevrolet Corvette management for YEARS have only built cars with someone's NAME on it, i.e.., a pretty definite paying customer (dealer, entities, individuals, etc.), albeit the majority being A/T with optional to standard 6/7 speed M/T's IN the minority. Now there are folks that do a deposit and cancel or change their minds for one reason or another. I am swaging they are an unknown smaller percentage. I also have seen in passing that 13 Corvette sales are @ app 17.291 k. I do not know what they expect to sell in 14 MY. So in effect, new car buyers really do not need to "settle" for A/T, M/T.